The Death of Ivan Ilych(1882-1886)

Death occupies a prominent place in Russian literature. And Leo Tolstoy's novel is the quintessential Russian reflection on it, an attempt to look death in the face. Tolstoy describes the hero's dying process in detail and, at the very end, in the last second before his death, he discovers that death no longer exists. Just as life no longer exists.

Vladimir Nabokov called the novella "the greatest example of how art can attack a taboo" – the taboo of talking about death. The most successful screen adaptation of the novella is considered to be ‘To Live’, directed by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa in 1952.

Translated by Louise & Aylmer Maude, Publisher Oxford university press/Milford, 1934